Reality 2.0

Doc Searls and Katherine Druckman talk about Hachette v. Internet Archive, a lawsuit targeting the Internet Archive that aims to prevent them from lending ebooks.

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• Hachette v. Internet Archive | Electronic Frontier Foundation — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), with co-counsel Durie Tangri, is defending the Internet Archive against a lawsuit that threatens its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program.
• What Does the Blockbuster Antitrust Trial Against Penguin Random House Mean for the Future of Libraries? - Internet Archive Blogs — The publishing industry is large and powerful—by some accounts, it generates nearly $100 billion in revenue worldwide. The United States Department of Justice has accused big publishers of abusing that power in the past, by conspiring with each other to raise the price of e-books. More recently, Penguin Random House has been in the legal crosshairs for an alleged abuse of power, as the Justice Department sues to stop its proposed (and allegedly anticompetitive) acquisition of Simon & Schuster.
• Internet Archive Opposes Publishers in Federal Lawsuit - Internet Archive Blogs — On Friday, September 2, we filed a brief in opposition to the four publishers that sued Internet Archive in June 2020: Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House. This is the second of three briefs from us that will help the Court decide the case.
• The Future of Online Lending: A Discussion of Controlled Digital Lending and Hachette with the Internet Archive | Berkman Klein Center — The Internet Archive offers Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), where it lends digital copies of books to patrons — but ensures that the number of books owned is equal to the number loaned. Through the Open Library, the Internet Archive aims to “make all the published works of humankind available to everyone in the world.”
• Mike Masnick on Twitter: "Shit. I *wish* the vaccine came with 5G internet access..." / Twitter

Doc Searls and Katherine Druckman talk to Dave Huseby about privacy, cryptography, and authentic data.

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• Memorandum on Improving the Cybersecurity of National Security, Department of Defense, and Intelligence Community Systems | The White House — This memorandum sets forth requirements for National Security Systems (NSS) that are equivalent to or exceed the cybersecurity requirements for Federal Information Systems set forth within Executive Order 14028 of May 12, 2021 (Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity), and establishes methods to secure exceptions for circumstances necessitated by unique mission needs.
• Guess which government doesn't want you to use end-to-end encryption — From a privacy point of view, there is much to love about end-to-end encryption, as employed by the likes of WhatsApp. But while users may delight in the knowledge that their communication is free from surveillance, there are some groups that have a different opinion.
• I Got Access to My Secret Consumer Score. Now You Can Get Yours, Too. - The New York Times — Little-known companies are amassing your data — like food orders and Airbnb messages — and selling the analysis to clients. Here’s how to get a copy of what they have on you.
• Black Teen Kicked Out Of Roller Rink Over Face Recognition | News | BET — A face recognition-equipped Detroit roller rink reportedly kicked out a Black teen on June 10 after misidentifying her as a person who’d allegedly gotten into a fight there in March.
• The principles of user sovereignty | by dwh | UX Collective — The first time I heard the phrase “user sovereignty” was while working at Mozilla on the Firefox web browser. Firefox ostensibly follows user sovereign design principles and respects its users. Mozilla has even baked it into their list of design principles on page 5 of the Firefox Design Values Booklet. But what does “user sovereignty” actually mean and what are the principles that define user-sovereign design?
• A Unified Theory of Decentralization | by dwh | The Startup | Medium — All networks begin as only one thing; one neuron, one cell, one chip, one computer, or one user. One entity alone is not a network, but it is the starting point for understanding the unified theory of decentralization. One entity is fully sovereign, it has no connections to anything else that might influence or control it. One entity in isolation is empowered to act however it wants to strive for whatever results it seeks.
• The Web was Never Decentralized. Redecentralize the web is a fantasy | Design Warp — There are so many people today focused on “re-decentralizing the web.” They have a popular belief that when the web was invented it was a wonderfully optimistic vision of decentralization, governed by democratic principles and full of free information available...

Doc Searls, Katherine Druckman, Shawn Powers, and Kyle Rankin talk right to repair Apple devices, cocktails, and our nerdy hobbies.

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• Everyone Is a Genius: Apple Will Offer Parts and Tools for DIY Repairs | iFixit News — Early next year, a previously impossible repair will be possible: you can buy an iPhone screen directly from Apple, use Apple’s repair guide (and tools, if you want) to install it, and have it fully work as intended, using Apple’s diagnostic software. And you won’t have to own an authorized repair shop to do it.
• Apple Self Service Repair Program | Right to Repair - Consumer Reports — In a major win for advocates, device owners and independent repair shops will soon have access to dozens of Apple parts, tools, and manuals—at the same price as authorized shops
• Apple (AAPL) Aims for Fully Autonomous Car - Bloomberg — Apple Inc. is pushing to accelerate development of its electric car and is refocusing the project around full self-driving capabilities, according to people familiar with the matter, aiming to solve a technical challenge that has bedeviled the auto industry.
• DIY Cocktails: A Simple Guide to Creating Your Own Signature Drinks: Marcia Simmons, Jonas Halpren: Amazon.com: Books — Black Rose, Blood Orange Tequila & Soda, Kentucky Apple Sour: the newest trend in cocktails is creating your own! Now, the editors of DrinkoftheWeek.com have concocted the only guide that teaches you to create your own infallible thirst-quenchers. Using a simple system of basic ratios, you will learn to: Mix new flavor combinations for the perfect new blend using the Flavor Profile Chart as a guide Master advanced mixology techniques from infusing liquors at home to creating custom-flavored syrups Serve the perfect drink every time, whether it kicks off a rowdy party or winds down a romantic evening! With only nine ratios to master, you'll shake, stir, roll, and build literally thousands of unique and exceptional cocktails. All you need is a good thirst, an active imagination--and this guide!
• Amazon.com: Mixology Dice® (tumbler) // Laser Engraved Wood Dice for Craft cocktail inspiration - Christmas gift, boyfriend gift, gift for him, gift for guys : Handmade Products — Whether you’re a newbie or a pro behind the bar, Mixology Dice will take your cocktail game to the next level. Along with providing seemingly endless inspiration (over 1.5 million combos!), this set of dice is actually a clever system for actually learning the art of mixology.
• Redwood Empire Whiskey - Our Whiskeys — The Northern California Coast is a unique place, one of the few in the world where giant redwood trees grow. A place of inspiration and renewal. This same cool climate makes it a perfect place to produce sublime whiskey. Aging barrels here allows for a slow and even extraction of flavor, producing a whiskey of exceptional balance and complexity. Taste what our Redwood Empire inspires.
• Guld...

Doc Searls, Katherine Druckman, Petros Koutoupis, and Kyle Rankin talk Parler and platform lock-in, the concept of data, software, and hardware ownership, and the open source social contract.

Show notes:
(49s):
“I think the first one, maybe the that's that we could cover is, well, let's see, how do I put this without causing too much controversy? That's just the idea of siloed social, silos of any kind, but in particular social media and perceived censorship as it, as it applies to social media. That's a, that's a hot topic right now.”

(1m 59s):
“Do you not know about parlor? No. Oh, this is going to be a great episode!”

(3m 54s):
“And so, as a result, a lot of people who are concerned about censorship on Twitter and Facebook have moved over there. And, and in particular on the conservative side, just because like with any social network, there's a network effect.”

(5m 11s):
“It also reminds me of the early days of Google plus”

(8m 53s):
“I think we're moving from one moderator to, I mean, This happens on, on Mastodon quite a bit where you will have, because it's so federated and because all of the instances can in theory, talk to each other, sometimes you'll have a falling out because many Mastodon instances are more or less governed by the winds of a sysadmin who decided to spin it up.”

(10m 55s):
“It looks different to everybody. We all have our own, our own feeds are on, you know, our own preferences, our own, you know, whenever it is, I mean, it's, it's, it's shaped shifts for each of us, depending on what we've looked at and who we follow and all the rest of it. And it's by design. So there's no uniform vision to it.”

(11m 35s):
“I think you said it, Catherine did, a lot of people were sort of creeped out by Facebook, but it's only because of read a bunch of stuff about, Hey, you're not private there. And then the movie they watched that movie, you know...now they're scared of Facebook. They're not entirely sure why.”

(12m 34s):
“We don't need platforms for all this stuff. You can do this stuff without platforms.”

(15m 24s):
“So that's an interesting segue into one of the other topics that we've been talking about and that's, it's being owned by platforms instead of the other way around. And I think, you know, we all have in common that we are, we have a bit of a DIY and obviously open source mentality”

(18m 11s):
“Apple announced a new Big Sur release. And around the time that they announced the update that the update was available. So presumably people were downloading it, et cetera. People started noticing on their Macs that they were having trouble launching programs. They would try to launch an application. And sometimes it would take, you know, a minute after saying to launch before the application showed up on their local machine.”

(23m 15s):
“it really raises the issues of ownership. You know?”

(24m 42s):
“And it sounds like in many cases, you don't, if you have a Mac, you don't necessarily own that”

(24m 59s):
“I don't know if there are degrees of severity of one's lack of control over your digital products in your life.”

(28m 20s):
“And, you know, and I thought the chance that Google is going to get rid of those is pretty high Google's record of holding onto a service that people don't pay for is pretty lousy.”

(29m 40s):
“You have a bundle of rights. And, and I think that we haven't worked out yet online.”

(32m 29s):
“And this ephemeral service, which is now tied to a tangible thing, that tangible thing, which before would have different rules applied to it, like say a thermostat or whatever it is, where when the, the cloud service goes away, the company goes away.”

(33m 17s):
“For example, like this, this thing that happened this week that we already talked about with Apple, I think a lot of people didn't think about how applications launching was tethered to the cloud in any way”

(33m 48s):
“It's like the, the internet is a network of leashes and, like dog leashes with colors on them.”

(35m 48s):
“And I think it was 1890 and it was about the time they decided the right of privacy was the right to be let alone.”

(36m 52s):
“something that we've talked about many times, and that is open source, open source licensing, open source culture, open source awareness, even.”

(37m 50s):
“And people now start to question, they go, Hey, wait a second. This, this big platform is making a ton of money off of this code that I wrote, but I'm not.”

(39m 25s):
“And does it matter, does it matter what exactly we're talking about? Like, does it matter if I'm talking about contributing to something like Apache or, you know, Linux kernel, or does it matter if we're talking about some sort of web framework or library that, you know, a...

Doc Searls, Katherine Druckman, and Kyle Rankin talk about facial recognition and surveillance technology in the hands of individuals, and how that affects the balance of power.

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• Activists Turn Facial Recognition Tools Against the Police - The New York Times — These activists say it has become relatively easy to build facial recognition tools thanks to off-the-shelf image recognition software that has been made available in recent years. In Portland, Mr. Howell used a Google-provided platform, TensorFlow, which helps people build machine-learning models.
• Fawkes — The SAND Lab at University of Chicago has developed Fawkes1, an algorithm and software tool (running locally on your computer) that gives individuals the ability to limit how unknown third parties can track them by building facial recognition models out of their publicly available photos.
• Mass Extraction - Upturn — To search phones, law enforcement agencies use mobile device forensic tools (MDFTs), a powerful technology that allows police to extract a full copy of data from a cellphone — all emails, texts, photos, location, app data, and more — which can then be programmatically searched. As one expert puts it, with the amount of sensitive information stored on smartphones today, the tools provide a “window into the soul.”
• Doc Searls Weblog · About face — We know more than we can tell.
• Vivian Maier Photographer | Official website of Vivian Maier | Vivian Maier Portfolios, Prints, Exhibitions, Books and documentary film
• Welcome to the 21st Century: How To Plan For The Post-Covid Future - O'Reilly Media — So too, when we look back, we will understand that the 21st century truly began this year, when the COVID19 pandemic took hold. We are entering the century of being blindsided by things that we have been warned about for decades but never took seriously enough to prepare for, the century of lurching from crisis to crisis until, at last, we shake ourselves from the illusion that our world will go back to the comfortable way it was and begin the process of rebuilding our society from the ground up.